Then Comes Love
by Emertheawesome
Summary: It's a good thing living isn't a romance, because life is so much better. On how to work a marriage, and how to make a marriage work. A Marriage Law, of sorts.


**A/N: **Many thanks to my lovely DMHG beta: swirlsofblack

**Then Comes Love**

"_Love is an ideal thing, marriage a real thing."_

-Goeth

"_The hardest task in a girl's life is to prove to a man that his intentions are serious."_

_-_Helen Rowlan

Draco glanced up from his novel, not even attempting to cover the binding, which revealed a scantily dressed couple staring dreamily into each other's eyes. Across from him sat Hermione, lounging with her own book, which was definitely not a novel. Surprises of surprises, it was something named _The Histery of Quantum Arithmancy and other Magical Mathematics vol. XVII._

The cell they sat in was dim and musty, but she seemed focused enough, squinting at the aged pages with a terrifying intensity.

"You know, Granger," Draco drawled, because he was just so bloody bored, "there are much more interesting books than that. Are you trying to make yourself even more dull?"

Hermione glanced up sharply. Her eyes slid to his own Harlequin novel with obvious disdain. "Would you prefer I read the trash you read, Malfoy?"

"Yes, actually," he replied. "I think it could make our future sex life-"

Immediately Hermione stood up, the chair clattering loudly behind her. She glared at him ferociously _(so beautiful, so dirty). _

She took a deep breath and unclenched her fists. Regaining her composure, she spoke. "I will be visiting again next Saturday. Would you like another book?"

Draco glanced down at his novel, three chapters and five pages in. "Yes, the sequel, if you will."

Hermione nodded jerkily and turned to the door. "Guard!" She shouted. In a few minutes, she was gone, and he was alone.

O

_(Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock. The woman gazed at him with lust-ridden eyes, hazy with desire.)_

Draco liked living in fantasy when no one else was around. The books Hermione supplied him with helped. He kept them neatly stacked beneath his cot, the colourful bindings were the only thing worth looking at in his dingy prison. Thank Merlin she put anti-rat charms on them, or surely they would have been devoured by the other occupants of his cell.

_(Another scratch in the wall. Her eyes were chocolate, honey, gold. The same hue as her hair, which haloed around her body, chest heaving, breasts bare for his lascivious perusal. Her blossom pink nipples perked with need.)_

Merlin, he was so _bloody bored. _

O

"You know," Draco said casually, tired of the heavy silence between them, "I'll be out of here in six months. What then?"

Hermione looked up. A new, exceedingly boring textbook was in her hands this time. '_The Anatomical Figures of Muggles and Wizards.'_

Draco gave it a pointed look, but made no comment. Hermione glared back at him, mouth impassive.

"You know what will happen, Malfoy," Hermione said shortly.

"No, not really." He was teasing her, and he really shouldn't, because it would cut her visit short. He really didn't want her to leave yet, but, _Merlin, _he loved it when she spoke. When her eyes snapped and her plump lips thinned at him, a scowl on her delicate, freckled complexion. He lived for her indignation. Was this what it would be like after his release? _(Oh, so bad he wanted to find out.)_

She reached a hand up to tug awkwardly at a flyaway curl. He watched, entranced. Was she blushing? He quite thought she was.

"Don't push me," she growled.

"I was just curious," he replied innocently.

"I did this for you," she snapped. "I don't like this anymore than you do."

The light mockery suddenly flared into anger. "You did not do this for me," Draco hissed, eyes narrowing. "You did this so you could be as much of a martyr as Potter. Don't delude yourself!"

She looked startled, then her brow furrowed in fury _(so lovely). _"Oh, would you have rather rot away in here, Malfoy? I'm sure that sounds like a nice life! Follow in your father's footsteps, eh? I should have just let the Ministry get away with their deviousness!"

Draco didn't trust himself to talk, instead he gripped the side of the table with white knuckles. So wrong. She was so wrong. _(It was true, he didn't like this anymore than she did, but not for the same reason. Never. Never that.)_

"Guard!" She yelled, and then she was gone. He sighed. She wouldn't be bringing him a book next week.

O

_Magical Bindings _it said simply. Draco stared at it, then the novel she had slid across the table to him. Roses blossomed around the edges of the cover, framing a passionately kissing couple.

"You brought me a book," he stated. She shot him a _'duh' _look.

Feeling sheepish, Draco grabbed it, then flipped to the back to read the summary. It was about a man fighting a woman for dominance, as well as his growing attraction for her. Inevitably, a steamy affair ensued. How fitting, yet not.

Draco glanced at the woman across the table from him. Her wedding band glinted dimly. _(He wanted to rip it from her, toss it, and fit her with something glowing and sharp. Something that did her hand justice, right? Right?)_

"Have you read this one?" He asked politely.

A short pause. "No."

"I bet it's quite good, you know," Draco murmured conversationally, "I don't mind you keeping this for another week to read."

Hermione set her book down to give him an unreadable look. "Thank you, Malfoy, but no."

Disappointment settled deep in his gut. _(So, so stubborn. Even politely, she was always fighting this. But it was __**her **__choice-)_

"Right," he acquiesced morosely.

_(Did he not deserve love either?)_

O

"There was a crooked man; he went a crooked mile-"

The air in the cell hummed, and Draco stared at the most recent book. _(And found a crooked sixpence against a crooked style.) _The page he had just turned to was bent, as though someone had marked their spot at the corner of the newly pressed paper. _(He bought a crooked cat, which caught a crooked mouse.)_ His gaze was befuddled, before realization dawned, like the clearing of a foggy dew on a hot, summer afternoon.

He finished the rhyme. "-And they all lived together in a little crooked house."

O

He didn't understand the next title. _Neurotransmitters and the Brain: What Causes Emotions._

She flipped the pages with a small furrow in her brow. The book she slid to him remained untouched, but she didn't notice: much too engrossed in her text. Draco just gazed at her; he wanted to interrupt her concentration, for her eyes to look at him. _(And only, only at him.)_

_("I love you," she would gasp, as their bodies merged. "I love you!")_

"Did you read this one?" Draco asked.

She glanced up, startled. "Excuse me?"

"I said: did you read this one?"

Hermione looked at him quizzically. "Of course not."

"…Oh."

He looked down at his novel, though he could still feel her gaze on him. Suddenly he felt dirty, grungy, and childish. He needed a haircut. Did she see him as a man?

O

It was Wednesday. Why did he have a visitor on Wednesday?

Hope ascended. Maybe it was Hermione. Maybe she was making an exception, and wanted to see him outside of the usual, scheduled day. Maybe she was changing her mind. Maybe-

Potter entered the room.

Hope crashed, and Draco felt a snarl twist his lips.

"Potter," he said sharply.

"Malfoy," Harry greeted, voice restrained. He glanced around the small cell; to the table, the cot and the books stacked preciously in the shadows.

Draco didn't bother rising from the flat mattress. "What do you want?" He also didn't bother hiding his blatant dislike.

"I'm here for Hermione."

Draco's chest clenched. It was too late, though, right? She couldn't back out now, right? He didn't bother to respond. Instead, he just stared down the Boy-Who-Had-Imprisoned-Him.

Harry shrugged and sat in one of the rickety chairs. "You're to be released soon. I want to ensure your behavior."

"And what behavior is that?" Draco spat.

Harry shot him a glare, his glimmering green eyes unyielding. "Your _good _behavior. If she's unhappy in any way-"

"What," Draco interrupted, "you think I'll taunt her and abuse her? Think I'll push her down? Do you even _know _her?"

Harry's lips thinned. "You don't need to do any of those things to make her unhappy."

Draco tried not to flinch. _(He knew that. Didn't he know that? He was more than aware of it, and he really, really wished he wasn't.)_

"I won't bite the hand that feeds me, Potter."

Harry had a strange look on his face. He was looking at the books. "She needs more. She's a human, Malfoy. Not a character. You can't figure her out through books."

Draco tensed. "If I was trying to figure her out through books, would I really be reading those? I just enjoy them. Lay off."

Harry shrugged, but he looked knowing and wise. Draco wanted to hit him.

O

Hermione didn't hand him the book right away. Instead, she fingered it, staring thoughtfully at the cover. Draco waited patiently.

"You know, Malfoy," she murmured, "these aren't real. You know that, right?"

He tensed. "Of course I know that. First Potter, then you. Lay off, yeah?"

Hermione frowned. "I just…. Never mind. It's not important."

"What?"

"Nothing, I just wanted to make sure."

He wished he were older than nineteen. He wished he understood women. He wished he understood her.

"Okay."

She handed him the book. A man, tenderly caressing a woman's fingers with his lips, graced the cover. He wanted to throw it across the cell in a fit of juvenile rage, but knew Hermione wouldn't like that. _(If only….)_

She didn't have a book this time, just a notepad. She began to review pages and write things. He subtly craned his head to see what it was, but no matter how he tried, he could read nothing. He opened the novel, a decidedly sulky mood overcoming him.

O

"Do you believe in love?"

Hermione stared at him, aghast, and Draco shifted uncomfortably. Perhaps he shouldn't have said anything.

"Come again?"

"You heard me," Draco snapped. "Do you believe in love?"

Hermione set her pen down, her mouth had finally shut, but she still looked stunned. Draco was about to tell her to forget it, that she was obviously a dried up old crone with a glacier for a heart, when her expression turned thoughtful.

"I guess that would depend on the type of love," she mused. "I certainly do believe in love."

Draco waited patiently. She seemed to be picking her words with care; perhaps like she wrote essays. Every syllable was meaningful, precise, and intelligent. He regretted asking, because she was not going to speak from the heart. She was speaking from the mind.

"I love my parents. I love my friends. I couldn't imagine living without them." She shot him an odd glance that he couldn't even begin to understand.

"But," he asked cautiously, feeling like a fool, "what about… true love?"

She frowned, then glanced at his novel. "No, not like that. I don't believe in that."

His heart sunk.

"Romance is unreal. Passion is insubstantial."

She was a bitch. He hated her.

"But," she continued, "I do believe in having that… one person… who supersedes all the others. A friend who is a lover, and more."

Never mind. He still-

"Why do you ask?"

Draco shrugged, his eyes slotted to the side, focused on the stone wall. "Only a month left," he finally said.

The ease that had sunk into her body immediately fled and she was tense once again. "Yes," she agreed, and was that nervousness in her voice? "Only a month."

O

When alone, he tried to unravel the reasons. Why had she done it?

He knew why he had agreed. It was the only way for him not to remain in Azkaban for the next twenty years. True, he hadn't done anything truly awful during the war - well, comparatively - but he had been a miserable git for some years, so he couldn't quite deny how deserved the prison sentence was. Yet, whether he deserved it or not, he still didn't want to remain in a jail cell for the prime of his youth.

So, when she had approached him with her offer, he had accepted.

But, he constantly asked himself, why?

Was another man hounding her? Or was she really such a saint that she would bind herself to a bad man for the rest of her life? Did someone force her?

Or maybe, just maybe, she didn't hate him as much as she claimed.

This last reason was less of a reason and more of a hope, a tenuous one at best.

_(Because he really, really didn't deserve it, though he desired it, oh, so much.)_

O

Another book, though it was his last week. She didn't have anything with her this time though. No boring textbook, no journal with Muggle pen. Just her _(lovely, dirty) _self.

Draco didn't touch the book. Instead, he stared at her.

She looked away, then held out her hand. In her palm was a plain, golden band.

"They said you could wear it," she whispered, "since you only have a week left."

He gazed at it, then gently took the ring from her hand. Her fingertips were calloused, not like the silky smooth mistresses of the Harlequin books she brought him. He felt warmth spread through him, and then he slipped the band over his ring finger. He looked up at her.

Her eyes were shadowed. _(Would they always be that way? He hoped not. So unwelcome. So unloved. He pined for her fire. Her blistering, burning, fire.)_

He looked down at the book. The cover was a simple image of two hands clasped tightly, fingers entwined. Love, not lust.

"I'm not a character, you know." Hermione was staring at him. Were her words defensive? They seemed defensive. "I'm a real person, and those books aren't real. You can't live in those."

He was positive now. She was hurt. "I know," he said.

"It won't be like that." Her voice was lower. "Love isn't easy like that. Marriage will be even harder."

"I know," he said.

She seemed at a loss for words, unsure of what to say next. Dismayed. "We'll have to work at it…" she trailed off.

"…I know."

Her fingers twisted her ring around her finger, over and over, pinking the skin. Suddenly, she stood. "Guard!" She shouted.

After her departure, he wished he could have thought of something better to say, but he hadn't, so she left.

O

She met him at the entrance. In her hand was his wand and new clothes in a plastic shopping bag.

"I thought you would want to change," she said shyly. He looked down at his ragged jail suit and nodded. She handed him the bag and his wand. Their fingers brushed, but he was more focused on the smooth wood in his hand; like being complete again. The guards behind them coughed pointedly.

"I can't apparate us from here," Hermione explained awkwardly. "The wards, you know. We'll have to take a boat across. You can change there."

Why couldn't he say anything? She didn't usually leave him so tongue-tied.

_(But this could work. He would make it work. Right? Right?)_

"Where are your books?" She asked.

He could answer that. "I left them."

She looked confused. "Why?"

"I don't need them anymore."

Relief flooded her features for the briefest of seconds, but she struggled to hide it quickly. "Oh."

Draco paused, and she turned to walk away. _(It's not love. Yet.)_

"Hermione," he called, and she paused. "Can I hold your hand?"

Hermione flushed. Prettily, he thought. "Okay…" She replied cautiously.

Nervously he reached forward. She was much shorter; her hand much smaller, but it felt right in his own.

_(For the first time.)_

"Right," Hermione said. "Let's go."

_(But not the last.)_


End file.
